As global gaming revenue continues to surpass 2021 records, gaming continues to evolve. In May of 2022 alone, land-based gaming grew 1.5 percent, with sports betting growing 5.1 percent and iGaming growing 2.4 percent. With more companies entering the gaming ecosystem, and more bettor engagement, there comes an increased focus on strengthening current or creating new features and functionality on gaming platforms to enhance the customer experience.

Ease of use is an aspect of user experience that isn’t talked about often, but it can make or break a product. G2E Insider sat down with three industry leaders to learn what areas of product development are most overlooked by developers and what they can do to improve the customer experience.

Brooke Fiumara, Co-CEO, OPTX

While creating OPTX, one of our focus points was turning thousands of data points into an easy-to-read application with a user interface that employees of all experience levels could successfully use and understand. This is often ignored in the development industry in favor of more numbers, more data, and more information, which can be extremely overwhelming. Our team has years of real-world casino operations experience and education, so while we allow drill-down access to even the smallest of data points, we pull the most actionable insights and information around players and machines to the surface. Limiting the amount of information allows for quicker and more accurate decision-making by all OPTX users.

Jai Maw, President, Betting Hero

In converting over 300,000 new customers to online sportsbook and iGaming products since the overturn of PASPA, Betting Hero is uniquely educated on the preferences of consumers when it comes to UX/UI and overall customer experience. In addition to our millions of customer interactions, each month, Betting Hero's Research team analyzes operator performance based on the exclusive findings of sports betting & iGaming customers in their respective state of residence. Consistently, good UX/UI has been the number one impacting factor for consumer loyalty to their favorite app with 53 percent of total respondents citing this reason. For perspective, promotions and bonus offers ranked second with 25 percent of total respondents citing this as the reason they remain loyal to their operator of choice.

These worlds collide when evaluating how promotions and offers are presented to users. Specifically, 33 percent of consumers want to see what promotions are available on their account homepage, 19 percent want a clear link to navigate to the sports they are interested in, and 30 percent want to see the most popular sports or games/events happening now.

Overall, we have found that consumers expect and will continue to demand improved UX/UI from their operator products of choice. It is no surprise that those leading in that area today are dominating market share, but as all products continue to improve, we may see a shift in perceived consumer loyalty.

Burton Deady, Strategic Account Manager for Sports Betting & Gaming, Applause

Poor player experiences aren’t always just a result of faulty development. Typically, poor experiences with betting and gaming apps—failed deposits, confusion for the casual player, bad content—occur when operators can’t put themselves in the bettor’s shoes. From the casual player to the expert bettor, the credit depositors to the loyalty members, those in Colorado vs. those in Ontario, without considering the huge number of variables introduced by potential bettors, including locations, demographics, devices, operating systems, payment sources, etc. Operators in the space need to know their customers intimately, hence the recent shift from player acquisition to retention, and it’s made even more important as the industry continues to launch in new states.

At Applause, we’re told first-hand that operators don’t always have adequate time or resources to validate product functionality or usability when the expectation is to release products to market at the drop of a hat. Gaining input from local resources and utilizing retention tools are fabulous ways to address that. Prioritizing quality and user experience goes a long way in keeping satisfied customers.

Hear about these topics and more at G2E 2022, October 10-13 (Education: October 10-13 | Expo Hall: October 11-13) at The Venetian Expo. You can register to attend here.